Thursday, March 25, 2010

The Xbox update just passed peer review. W00T! The most important fix is that the KoduZone servers are now visible again.

With this change, the Xbox version has now caught up with the PC version in terms of features.

For the past several months we’ve been primarily focused on the PC version of Kodu so a lot of the keyboard and mouse support we’ve been adding doesn’t really apply to the Xbox version. But we’ve also fixed a bunch of bugs and added new features that apply to both.

·We renamed the “Mini Hub” to “Home Menu” since this makes a bit more sense and should be easier to remember. You still get to it from in game by pressing the Start button.

·GamePad direction filters —You can now look for specific directions on the gamepad sticks. For instance, When Left Stick Up : Do Create Apple

·Turning and movement can now be controlled separately. For instance I can program a Kodu with:

When Always : Do turn North

When Gamepad LeftStick : Move

This will allow Kodu to move around but always face the same direction.

·New option to hide the resource meter (thermometer) during gameplay. This is on a per-level basis and can be found in the World Options list.

·New support for nested rows in the programming UI. The nesting of the rows in indicated by indentation. Any indented rows are only run if the “When” side of their parent row is also true. For instance it used to be complicated to program a bot to shoot at another bot when the user pressed a button. The old solution required switching pages. Now you can program this as:

When Gamepad A :

When See Kodu : Do Shoot

This is just one example where this is useful. I’m sure you’ll find more.

Note that when you cut/paste a row with other rows nested beneath it, all the nested rows will be cut and pasted with their parent.

·Fixed help overlay information for paused mode. BTW To get into paused mode with the GamePad you have to press both triggers AND both stick-buttons at the same time.

·Allow going from paused mode straight to the HomeMenu. This is great for creating nice thumbnails since you can pause the game, move the camera to where it looks best and then go straight into the HomeMenu to save the game.

·New Hint system. What this does is when we recognize a point where we can help we bring up a “toast” notification in the lower right hand corner of the screen. When toast pops up you can press on the gamepad to bring up the modal version of the dialog with more information. Note that the option only applies to hints during edit time. When you’re playing the level the button may be mapped to game controls so we don’t steal it away. We’ve created a handful of hints that work with the new system but we’re always looking for more ideas. Can you think of anything that should be covered by this?

·Automatic updates: When installing the new version you have the option to opt-in to have Kodu check for updates each time it starts up.

·Usage information: When installing the new version you have the option to opt-in to having Kodu send anonymous usage information to help us make Kodu better.

·New privacy statement.

·Add support for Cyrillic characters.

·Added mouse control buttons to help screens.

·Allow the ‘Home’ key to take you directly from the MainMenu to the HomeMenu. Note that this only works if you already have a level loaded, ie you’ve either loaded a level or resumed since starting.

·Allow going from paused mode straight to the HomeMenu. This is great for creating nice thumbnails since you can pause the game, move the camera to where it looks best and then go straight into the HomeMenu to save the game.

·New Hint system. When toast pops up you can either press on the gamepad, or F1 on the keyboard or left click with the mouse to bring up the modal version of the dialog. Created a handful of hints that work with the new system. Always looking for more ideas.

·Fixed bugs with ToolTips being rendered underneath AddItem menu and over text editor.

·Fixed bug where dragging a character with the mouse across the bottom of the screen would drop the character and activate the ToolBar.

·Fixed help overlay information for paused mode. BTW To get into paused mode, on the keyboard just hit the ‘pause’ key. With the GamePad you have to press both triggers AND boh stick-buttons at the same time. J

·Fixed end of game display so you can just click on the buttons on the screen as well as pressing them on the keyboard.

·Fixed bug caused by transitioning between gamepad and keyboard/mouse modes while the AddItem menu is active.

·Fixed a bug in the radio button UI element which was causing its value to be ignored.

·Fixed a bug in the text editor’s handling of key caps.

·Tuned the physics behavior of the apple, rock and soccer ball to be less infinitely bouncy.This should not affect already created levels.